


The Untimely Death of Rory Gilmore

by tiniestdino



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Major Character Undeath, Minor Character Death, arithmomania, everyone here is morally gray at BEST, forget it jake it's vampiretown
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2020-08-10 04:17:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiniestdino/pseuds/tiniestdino
Summary: Set during 2x16: There's the Rub. What would happen if, instead of Dean interrupting dinner, Rory turned into a vampire? Probably not this. The horror/comedy/romance nobody asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is a vampire AU. There will be murders of both mortals and vampires, but it's supposed to be a dark comedy, so please feel free to laugh when characters die.

“I’m upset with Dean,” Lorelai announced, resting her chin on her fist thoughtfully. Jess smirked to himself as he wiped down tables, wondering what Wonderboy could have _possibly_ done to earn Lorelai’s disapproval. 

Luke didn’t respond more than a disinterested grunt, and Jess could tell without looking that he was making up another pot of coffee. Lorelai probably wouldn’t even notice.

“No, not upset, I guess,” she continued, evidently unconcerned that no one was interested. “More… confused.” Luke grunted again.

Lorelai said nothing for a moment. “Luke. Did you want to know why I’m confused? About Dean?”

Internally, Jess sighed, and Luke echoed it aloud a second later. “Gee, Lorelai, why are you confused about Dean?”

“That’s very kind of you to ask, and I’ll tell you why, and then maybe you’ll feel bad for not caring in the first place.”

No matter how often Jess cleaned, the construction dust got everywhere. He gave up on wiping tables for the time being, loaded up both hands with empty dishes and walked them into the back room. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Lorelai looking contemplatively into the middle distance and Luke watching her, an impatient hand on his hip.

“Well?” Luke prompted.

Jess joined Luke behind the counter, tidying as he went. Chunk of plaster here, bit of drywall or something there. Jess didn’t have the greatest faith in the carpenters of Stars Hollow to not actually destroy the diner in the process of expanding the apartment. Lorelai refocused on Luke, her lips puckered distastefully. “He gave Rory a hickey.”

Luke startled, and Jess’ gut turned again. He was surprised by a moment of empathy with Lorelai; that _was_ upsetting.

“God!” Luke practically shouted. “Why would you tell me that?” He rubbed his hands over his face, scrubbing at his eyes. “Why would you ever think I would want to _know_ that? Did you want me to defend her honor or something?”

Lorelai rapped her nails on the counter. “Well,” she said slowly, “it’s not actually like that’s unusual behavior for teenagers, you know. Ones who are dating, and have been dating for, like, years now.”

“One year,” Luke said, still a little flustered.

“Whatever, that’s plenty long for kids their age. I was knocked up way before that in the longest relationship I had.”

Luke’s eyes bugged, but Lorelai continued without seeming to notice. “It’s just strange that it’s never happened before. I guess.” She huffed. “I’m not even sure _why_ it’s bothering me as much as it is. I mean, it’s proof that they’re, like, normal – isn’t it?”

Luke looked at her like she was insane and she tilted her head. “It just – it looks like a … a … _love bite_. Like a _bite_.” She snapped her teeth to demonstrate and Luke nodded frantically, motioning to her to continue. “And when I brought it up, thinking I could mock her - _forever_ \- she was surprised. She didn’t even know it was there.”

Lorelai held her hands in the air in an exaggerated shrug, and Luke bent his head in low to her, bracing himself on the counter. “Lorelai,” he said gravely. “Do you think he did it while she was asleep?”

Her entire face scrunched up in confusion and Jess had to bite down a laugh. He slid away unnoticed, rounding the counter to clear off a newly abandoned table.

“What? Luke, what are you _saying_? I’m not accusing Dean of any criminal activity, I just – ugh, never mind.” She flapped her hands dismissively. “I think I’m just worrying because I’m going out of town tomorrow night.”

Jess perked up at that, slowing his pace.

“Wait, you’re leaving for the weekend? You’re going to leave Rory alone?” Luke sounded truly offended. “With _Dean_? On a Friday? So he can paw at her and … and … _chew_ on her?”

The intensity of Luke’s distress seemed to have cured Lorelai of hers. She made a dismissive noise and reached for her purse. “I can’t help it; I’m in Emily Gilmore’s demonic, vice-like grip. It’s intractable. Houdini wouldn’t be able to escape these bonds.

“Anyway, Rory’s going to spend the night alone in the house. Evidently she’s so excited when I leave that she has to spend the time basking in silence. As though I’m that loud!”

Luke scoffed and rolled his eyes, which prompted Lorelai to start up a back-and-forth with him about how quiet and peaceful she was – and _Jesus_, there was only so much of that Jess could handle listening to. He deposited dirty dishes in the back room and came back out to the same conversation.

Jess looked around the diner. There were people in here – all of them, he assumed, with perfectly functional hearing, and Lorelai was announcing that her hickey-riddled daughter was going to be alone in the house over the weekend. He just shook his head. He didn’t get the way the town worked, and, for a moment, he felt a little bad for Rory. She couldn’t _sneeze_ without everyone knowing about it.

“Well, I have to go,” Lorelai declared, slapping a couple of bills on the counter. “I’m off to hell for the weekend. Wish me luck!”

“Good luck!” Jess called, tossing a towel over his shoulder.

Lorelai faltered, her hand on the doorknob, to give Jess a suspicious look.

He grinned and held up a hand to her. “Have fun!”

Her eyes narrowed but she smiled. “Thanks,” she replied with as much treacly sweetness as she could muster, and let her expression fall into cool unamusement as she walked out the door.

\---

The construction in the diner made everything there worse. Luke was crankier, the patrons were sending back dusty food, and there was no escape in the apartment. His air mattress was completely destroyed now, the victim of a stray power tool, and Jess’ room, for the moment, was a sleeping bag shoved in the corner farthest from the construction, next to Luke’s bed. All the outlets were off-limits or in use, so he couldn’t even listen to music or turn on lights to read.

He was in the frame of mind to do something stupid. The problem with Stars Hollow was that it was so small that he was running out of things to screw with. There was always Taylor, but Jess didn’t want to overplay that hand. Watching Taylor get bug-eyed with anger and flail his arms at Luke was starting to lose its appeal.

His mind kept wandering back to what Lorelai had said the previous morning. She was out of town, and Rory was home alone.

The plan had formed in his mind before he was fully aware it was developing.

Luke was yelling at Tom again – it happened at least once every hour, and Luke got so focused when he was pissed off that he didn’t even notice Jess. Not when Jess deliberately selected multiple to-go containers from the shelves by Luke’s head, or when he lined those containers up neatly, side-by-side, on the counter at Luke’s elbow. And not when Jess took half an hour walking back and forth between the kitchen and the diner to cook enough food to fill them all.

Luke was still yelling when Jess was packing up the box, considering it like a puzzle and rearranging the packages inside it to get it all to fit.

“Tom, a chunk of drywall hit me in the head! I don’t think your guys know what they’re doing!”

“Chunks of drywall have been hitting a lot of people in the head.” A second later, another piece of ceiling landed on an empty chair. Tom pointed to it. “See?”

“That’s the point! The walls should not be falling in!” As much as Luke tended to overreact to everything, Jess was on his side for this. It was another good reason to get out of the diner. He was much less likely to die in a horrible construction accident if he was with Rory.

“Well, sor_ry_,” Tom drawled, not sounding sorry at all. “I tried to tell you that there would be no disruptions at all if we did this entirely as an after-hours project. My guys are used to working nights anyway – all this daytime stuff is throwing them off.”

“Are you saying that they’re wrecking the diner because I screwed up their sleep schedule?”

Tom shrugged. “It’s a possible factor.”

The last piece of the food-in-a-box puzzle was a bag full of condiments – not ketchup or salt and pepper packets, because he knew that was one thing the Gilmores did have in abundance – things like cheese sauce and a container of Ranch dressing. There wasn’t any salad – he knew better than that – but what the hell, Rory might like putting that crap on her fries or something. He couldn’t figure a way to get it to fit without completely dismantling the rest of the box, and he didn’t want to do that. It’d just have to sit on top of everything.

“That’s another thing, Tom. You know I found two of your guys asleep in the storage room earlier?” Luke pointed viciously toward the kitchen, just missing hitting Jess in the face.

Jess scowled but said nothing. He considered, briefly, telling Luke that he was going out, but he didn’t think Luke would hear him. At any rate, it was downright stupid to attract Luke’s attention when he was in this bad of a mood. He’d be upset with Jess no matter what he said he was doing.

He set the box down on a table by the door while he shrugged into his jacket. Miss Patty, who was sitting across from him and running her fingers up and down her water glass with unsettling deliberation, looked him over.

“Where are you going with all that food, honey? You got a date tonight?”

“You bet,” he said, buttoning the jacket. “Me and this hand.” He waved to her and yanked the door open, propping it open with his foot, and grabbed the box quickly, hoping to get out before she could reply.

He heard her low chuckle as the door shut behind him. “That’s a shame!” she called.

Jess shook his head, walking briskly. Everything was everybody’s goddamn business around here.

Even though it was only two-tenths of a mile from the diner to the Gilmore house, a box packed to bursting with hot food was heavy, and fucking _hot_. He was having trouble keeping the box steady in his sweaty grip by the time he jogged up the steps. He balanced it on one knee to hit the doorbell and juggled its balance with alternating hands to wipe his palms off on his pants and give the collar of his jacket a sharp upward tug.

He just had himself in order when Rory opened the door, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair loose around her shoulders. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged up the corners of his mouth, so he tried to slant it into a smirk.

“Delivery.”

“Jess,” she said, a tiny line forming between her eyebrows.

“I brought food,” he said, as though the box full of to-go containers wasn’t self-explanatory.

Rory looked down at it and then back at him. “Oh. Why?”

“Luke knew Lorelai was going out of town and he wanted to make sure you didn’t go hungry.” Her eyes tracked over his face, down to the collar of his coat, expression unreadable. “So, where do you want this? Kitchen?”

He moved into the house without waiting for her reply. She followed just behind him, hands stuck deep in her pockets.

“Uh, sure. That’s awesome timing. I was trying to decide where I wanted to get food from and nothing really sounded good. The original plan was Sandeep’s, but I don’t know. It’s so garlicky.”

“Yeah. You’d have to burn the house down afterward to kill the smell.” He set the food down on the table and glanced at her. She was looking at him oddly, a little smile on her face.

“What? What’s with that look?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just sometimes I don’t quite get why you and Mom don’t get along better.”

Jess rolled his eyes and started unloading containers. “Yeah, that’s a real mystery.”

Rory took a step toward the table. “That’s a ton of food. How much does Luke think I eat?”

Jess snorted and lifted his eyebrows at her.

“Seriously, I don’t need _that_ much for one night.”

“Well, Luke didn’t know how long you’d be alone. So he made you enough food for _two_ nights.”

Rory’s eyes narrowed minutely. “That’s very nice of Luke. I’ll have to thank him.”

“Yep.”

Rory nodded and joined him at the table. She started going through the containers, lifting some to peer at the contents. “Do you want to help me eat this?”

_What?_

“What?”

“I really can’t eat all of this, and reheated fries suck.”

Jess was trying – he honestly was – to get his bearings back. It wasn’t like Rory to take initiative, especially not to interact with _him_. It was a game just to get her to admit that she thought of him as a friend.

It took him a second – just one, he thought – to reply. “So you want to have dinner with me?” He smirked and quirked his eyebrow as far as it would go. He felt idiotic, like he was trying too hard.

“Yeah, if you want to stay.”

His jaw dropped open, but the teasing reply he’d had ready was useless. “Oh.”

“Paris is here, too. I figure there’s enough for all of us. Feel free to join in if you want. After all, you brought the food. Take off your jacket, pull up a chair.” She waved a hand at the table and turned, heading back into the living room, where he could hear her talking to Paris. Jess hadn’t noticed her.

Oh. It wasn’t going to be just the two of them, and there was no reason for Rory to be weird about him staying. Right.

He set to work, quietly pulling out plates, utensils, and cups for the three of them. By the time Paris and Rory came into the kitchen to eat, he had their places set and was eating his own dinner. Paris looked around at the mound of food, her eyes widening. “There _is_ mac and cheese,” she said, sounding almost awed. Jess couldn’t help himself from smiling in response.

“Yeah, it’s a bountiful cornucopia,” he said, trying for sarcasm but missing by a couple of degrees. He was off his game tonight. “Dig in.”

Paris sat, rolling up her sleeves. Rory glanced at the table, briefly touching the glass of soda he’d gotten her. “Thanks,” she said, pulling out her chair.

He shrugged, watching Paris serve herself food. He remembered her from the time she’d accused Luke of running a brothel in the diner. “Are there any 24-hour pharmacies around here in case this food kills me?” she asked, sucking melted cheese off her thumb.

Dinner was going to be strange.

Five minutes later, they were debating poetry. Five minutes after that - Russian authors, Dickens versus Gaskell, Dorothy Parker’s opinion on the Beat Generation, and the complete unreadability of Tristram Shandy, gentleman though he may be. Naturally, this evolved into a discussion of the value – or total lack thereof – of reading list classics.

“You need to expand your mind a little from your Dead White Man canon,” Jess said around a mouthful of coleslaw.

“Oh, really?” Paris replied challengingly. Her expression was fierce, but she was having fun. Hell, _he_ was having fun. “Tell me, what exactly about my Dead White Man canon, as you put it, is so wrong? How is reading Terri McMillan – and like anyone is going to remember who _she_ is in five years – going to get me into Harvard?”

Jess laughed. “I have no idea what’ll get you into Harvard. That’s the thing; I’m talking about reading because you love books, not because you love the Ivy League. Read everything, the shit and the high brow.” He poked around the table, searching for hot sauce. “And Terri McMillan isn’t the only non-dead, non-white, non-man author in the world.”

He looked over at Rory, who was watching him with an almost unsettling interest. “You’re not eating,” he pointed out, stuffing more fries in his mouth. She smiled at him tightly and shook her head.

“I’m not really hungry.” She lowered her eyes to his collar and then looked away.

He frowned a little. “Are you sure you’re feeling OK?”

She nodded, rubbing her neck idly. When her hair shifted away from her skin, he caught a glimpse of the hickey Lorelai mentioned earlier. He had forgotten about it, disregarding Lorelai’s concern as part of her – and the whole town’s – collective insane protectiveness about Rory, but once he saw it, he was surprised by the intensity of his urge to hit Dean in his gigantic face. The mark was large and high up her neck, raised in a bruise. It looked like Dean really had bitten her.

He wasn’t paying attention to Paris anymore, which both girls noticed almost simultaneously. Rory colored when she saw where he was looking and brushed her hair forward to cover the bruise. Paris, meanwhile, slammed her palm against the table.

“Hey!” she called. “We’re having a conversation here. You can ogle Snow White when we’re done.”

Jess lifted his eyebrows and turned his attention back to Paris, trying to gauge Rory’s reaction in his periphery. She shifted a little, but there was no way to see if she was blushing without looking at her. He couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he said mildly. “Continue.”

“Your position is crap.”

Jess chuckled, pushing down the nagging feeling of worry over Rory. Maybe sometimes she actually didn’t eat a metric ton of food. It would make sense, medically speaking.

“How’s that?” he asked, forcing himself to focus on Paris.

“Enjoying literature just to enjoy it is a waste of time. Everything I do – and everything I have done for as far back as I can remember – is about getting to the top. Being the best at Chilton, and then at Harvard, and then at medical school. Do you think any neurosurgeons will be impressed when I tell them, ‘Golly, I sure loved the latest Norah Roberts’? You might as well tell me that I need to take the time to appreciate a really beautiful rainbow. Sniff a flower.” She sliced her hand through the air dismissively.

The phone rang, and Paris continued, unconcerned. “We’ll check back in five years’ time and you can tell me how much Nicholas Sparks has enriched _your_ life.”

Rory made no move to get up or answer the phone, and Paris shot her a frustrated glance. “Are you going to get that?”

Rory blinked at her, expression blank. “That’s not my phone.” Both girls turned their focus to Jess.

His eyebrows shot up. “I don’t have a cell phone. The ringing’s not even coming from over here, it’s coming from the living room.”

Paris’ forehead furrowed. “Is that my phone? Who in the hell would be calling _me_ on a Friday night?” She stood quickly, wiping her hands on a napkin and muttering. “Louise? I thought those idiots had dates tonight. She better not be calling me because she’s stranded at a bar without her shoes again – I told her I’d be studying.”

“You’re not studying. You’re having dinner.”

“Shut up, Gilmore,” she called from the hall.

Jess sent an amused look Rory’s way. “She’s crazy,” he said, smiling.

Rory shrugged, resting her elbows on the table. “She’s Paris.” She leaned closer, intent on his face. One corner of her mouth pulled up. “But I’m guessing you’re having a better time here than you would at the diner.”

Jess snorted. “What, with all the banging and yelling and imminent decapitation by stray hand saws? It’s a ball. And I’m always real sad when I can’t spend more quality time with Uncle Luke.”

Rory tilted her head. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”

Jess paused. He wasn’t sure if she meant here tonight or in Stars Hollow in general, but that was… unexpected. He looked up at Rory, trying to figure out how to respond. She was watching him, a small smile toying at her lips. He couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Yeah, your life would be pretty dull without me,” he offered at last with a mischievous smile.

“That it would,” she agreed brightly, an unusual glint in her eye.

Paris came back into the kitchen wearing her jacket, her bag slung over her shoulder. She held her cell phone loosely in one hand and was studying it with apparent confusion.

“Is everything all right?” Rory asked, moving to stand.

Paris’ attention snapped to Rory. “Yes,” she said quickly. “I mean –” She looked down at the phone, mouth slanting in concentration. She looked back at Rory, assessing. “Can I trust you?”

Rory made a vague arm gesture. “Yes?”

Paris’ eyes narrowed. “You better be serious about that.” Rory shifted uncomfortably. “It should come as no surprise that I have contacts in high places. I just got a call from someone I never, _ever_ expected to be useful. This is big. Maybe… maybe even bigger than a Franklin cover article.”

“You have contacts in high places to give you tips for Franklin articles?” Even though Jess couldn’t see, he could tell Rory’s face was lightly scrunched in confusion.

“Of course. And I guess I’m feeling weirdly… benevolent, I don’t know, but probably a little insane – and I think it might be a reaction to all the dairy I’ve had tonight – but if this is as good as I think it is, I might let you in on it.” She tipped her head back, fixing Rory with an imperious look.

“In on …it? For what?”

“A shared byline.”

Rory nodded slowly. “That’s really… thanks, Paris!”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see. I’ll call you when I get to the morgue.”

Rory flipped her attention to Jess, expression bewildered. He mouthed _morgue?_, eyebrows shooting up, and Rory gave a little laugh.

“Well, bye,” Paris said, turning abruptly for the door. Rory jogged after her, calling out something about note cards and study binders.

Alone at the kitchen table, Jess felt the slightest bit awkward. Rory had been behaving strangely all evening, and once they were alone, he honestly had no idea where the evening would go, if she’d even want him to stay. He already had an invitation to dinner, and he could probably spin that into a movie, and maybe even rifling through her books. With her permission, this time.

He stood, clearing away the remains of Paris’ dinner partially out of habit and partially out of discomfort with waiting passively for Rory to return. He heard Rory wish Paris a good night, as well as a half-hearted offer that she didn’t need a shared byline for a story about dead bodies – to which Paris gave the prompt reassurance that it wasn’t about necrophilia – and close the door.

Jess propped himself against the counter on one hand, his other hand stuffed in his pocket. Rory walked back into the kitchen, her focus on the floor, and was surprised when she almost ran into him.

“Oh,” she said, taking an involuntary step back.

“So.” He raised his eyebrows.

She pushed her sleeves up to her elbows in a nervous gesture. “Um.”

Jess indicated the table with a tilt of the head. “Did you want to finish eating? Or… start eating, since you really haven’t had anything?” She shifted, twisting her mouth in apparent concentration. He pulled an exaggerated frown, sticking out his bottom lip. “Luke will be very angry with me if he finds out I didn’t feed you.”

Rory looked at him then, expression unreadable. She took a step toward him, the deliberation and caution in her movement making his lungs constrict.

“Isn’t Luke expecting you back soon? Didn’t he just send you over here to drop the food off, or… was he planning on you spending the evening with me?”

Jess held her eyes, unblinking. “He didn’t care.”

Rory nodded, moving closer. Her eyes tracked over his neck and shoulders, and he felt a slight tug of tension in his back. It seemed she’d been doing that a lot, and he didn’t remember her having a problem looking him in the eye before tonight. It was, he supposed, possible that he simply had the world’s most appealing clavicle. He would have to wear button-downs more often.

She made a self-conscious move for him, drawing her clenched fists back to her sides. Jess bowed his head, attention fixed on her hands. Going against every bit of self-preservation he had, he reached for her.

He gripped her elbows loosely, thumbs playing with the hem of her shirtsleeves. He kept his head bent, focused on his hands and hers. She lifted her right hand slowly, tentatively, to rest on his shoulder. It was outside his field of vision, but he could feel her roll the fabric of his shirt between her fingers. He brushed his hand across the inside of her elbow, loosely looping his fingers around her forearm. He lifted her arm as he slid his hand to her wrist, pausing when he reached her bracelet. He hooked a finger under the suede and flicked the medallion with his thumb.

_Piece of shit thing_, he thought. Now that he knew it was a present from Dean, he felt a little stupid about the two weeks he’d carried it around. Used it as a bookmark. He sighed. Part of him wanted to pick the knot loose and let it fall to the floor as a sort of very pointed symbolism. But he couldn’t be the one who did that, and he wasn’t entirely sure what was happening here.

He looked up at her, still toying with the bracelet. To his surprise, she was intent on his face, and immediately caught his eye.

“Rory.” He didn’t know what to say – he didn’t want to stop whatever was coming next.

She edged in closer, gently extracting her wrist from his hold to curl her fingers around the back of his neck, dip her fingertips into the hair at the base of his skull. He traced his hand back down her arm to rest on her waist. They both inched nearer.

She was so close. Too close to hold her gaze without going crosseyed. Their noses touched and she tilted her head, bypassing his lips to brush her cheek against his, curving her neck so her mouth was at his pulse. He could feel her hot, heavy breathing on his neck, and he shivered.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Her voice was low but clear. She was far too close to his ear for him not to hear.

He squeezed his eyes shut, his grip on her waist tensing momentarily as disappointment briefly spiked into anger and dulled again into a low ache. Jess drew away with a sigh, dropping his hands to his sides. “Yeah,” he said, trying to sound indifferent. At first, she didn’t let go, but he leaned back with just enough force to break her hold.

Absent Jess to support her, she clutched at the counter, breathing deeply. This was a much stronger reaction to almost kissing him than he would have expected – some part of him wanted to be flattered, but mostly it was annoying and confusing and he couldn’t make sense of what she wanted from him.

“Jess,” she mumbled.

“No, I get it,” he cut in. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear Dean’s name or _I love him_ or _I can’t do this to him_ or any other bullshit. “It’s no biggie.”

She shook her head, passing a hand across her forehead. She lurched sideways and righted herself, fixing her unfocused eyes on him. “Jess,” she said again, sounding confused.

He took a step toward her, touching a hand to her shoulder. “Rory? What’s wrong?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Her eyelids fluttered and she took a heavy, unsteady step backward. Her grip on the counter slipped loose.

She was fainting.

“Rory!”

Jess tried to position himself to catch the brunt of her fall with his body, stumbling as he moved too quickly and already off-balance when her shoulder hit him in the center of his chest with all the force of her dead weight behind it. He staggered, winded, and Rory was still falling. He lost whatever balance he still had and his stomach dropped in the split second of free fall before he landed hard on his tailbone. Rory followed him down into his lap, her legs sliding out at odd angles, her head thumping into his shoulder.

Jess swallowed roughly, taking a moment to regain his bearings from the shock of impact. He supported Rory under her armpits, trying to sit her upright, but her head lolled heavily to the side.

The phone rang. He swore mentally, glancing down at Rory. He had to get her off the floor, and he had to call an ambulance. Whoever was calling would have to fuck themselves. Or, maybe, if it was Lorelai, she’d be worried enough when Rory didn’t answer the phone that she’d call the police herself.

“Rory?” he tried, knowing he wouldn’t get a response. She wasn’t conscious.

He looped his arms under her armpits, clasping his hands together at her sternum, and stood carefully. Her body sank into his hold, her arms akimbo and her neck bent sharply, pressed against his chest. Jess didn’t love the idea of dragging her, but he knew it would be effective and put less strain on him than if he tried to carry her.

He pulled Rory into her bedroom, feeling his erratic heartbeat echoing against his ribs where she was propped against him. He hefted her onto her bed, using careful movements to straighten her limbs. Still bent low over her, his breath caught hot and painful in his chest. Her pallor was frightening, her complete lack of response even more so.

He bent his knees, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet. Was she hypoglycemic? Was _that_ why she was eating all the time? But if she was and she knew it, why hadn’t she been eating? He cupped her face in one hand, tilting it to him gently, and smoothed her hair back with the other. Her skin was cool to the touch, but not enough to make him more worried than he already was. He pulled up one of her eyelids and stopped – her pupils were huge. The smallest sliver of blue was still visible around them, and he hadn’t seen them contract in response to the light. He let her eyelid drop shut and ran his hand across his mouth. She looked fucking _stoned_.

This didn’t make any sense. He brushed her hair off her neck and his stomach flipped again at the sight of the bruise there, which looked even worse now in stark, painful contrast with her pale skin. Her pulse fluttered gently underneath the mark.

Somewhere in the kitchen, the phone stopped ringing. Jess didn’t hear the answering machine pick up, which meant the line was free. He was on his feet before he was aware of his determination to get to the phone, bursting into the kitchen at the same moment Dean came in through the back door, cell phone in hand.

They both froze. If Jess hadn’t been distracted worrying about Rory, he would have found the way Dean’s features all slowly pulled toward the middle of his face _extremely_ amusing. As it was, he just wanted to find a fucking phone. He eyed the one in Dean’s hand, realizing with some bitterness who had just been calling.

“What the hell are you doing in Rory’s room?” Dean asked, voice low. He scanned the kitchen, the corners of his mouth turning down as he took in the scene. He looked back up at Jess. “Where’s Rory?”

“She’s in there,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “You might want to hold off on the whole scowling and looming and threatening thing for just a minute, though. I need to call an ambulance. Give me your phone.”

He was being completely sincere, but Dean sneered. “You really think you’d do that well in a fight, or are you calling the ambulance for yourself?” He deliberately put his cell phone in his jeans pocket. Jess just rolled his eyes and stepped over to the shelves, flipping over books and papers. He thought for sure Rory had brought the portable in here – it had sounded like it was in this room when it had been ringing earlier, too.

“Rory?” Dean called, ignoring Jess for the moment to stomp into her bedroom. Jess swore to himself. He had maybe ten seconds to find the phone and call 911 before Dean started lumbering around in a rage.

He jogged to the table on the other side of her door. _Ah-ha_. He grabbed the phone as Dean reemerged from Rory’s room, expression thunderous.

“Can this wait just a second?” he asked, indicating the phone in his hand and trying valiantly to sound sincere.

Before he could react, Dean’s fists were in his shirt, swinging him around and propelling him into the wall right next to Rory’s bedroom door. Jess lost his grip on the phone, which clattered to the floor, and grabbed Dean’s wrists, trying to break his hold. His shoulders and then his head hit hard, leaving him winded and momentarily stunned.

“What did you do?” Dean snarled in his ear, his face so close it was the only thing Jess could see. Jess’ toes were barely touching the floor, and Dean was still looking down at him.

“Nothing,” he said, as disdainfully as he could while only partially able to breathe. “She collapsed. We have to call – ” Dean cut him off by pulling him away from the wall just enough to slam him back into it again. Jess’ teeth snapped together.

“Fuck you,” Dean hissed. “I know you’re lying. What’s that on her neck, huh? I kept hearing around today that I gave Rory a hickey. I thought it was just stupid gossip, but it was _you_.” He shifted his grip, holding Jess to the wall with a beefy forearm across his chest, his other hand still fisted in Jess’ shirt. He pressed his weight onto the arm pinning Jess, crushing him.

Jess laughed breathlessly. “Wasn’t me,” he wheezed. Strange and hilarious that it wasn’t Dean, either. It made more sense in his view of the world, but much less in that the mark was now completely unexplained.

“Bullshit.” Dean said. “She told me she wanted to spend the night alone, and here _you_ are. How long has this been going on, huh?”

Jess was getting lightheaded. Distantly, he was worried about his ribs. He didn’t know how much more pressure they could bear, and he couldn’t get any leverage to fight back. Dean was practically flush against him, and every now and then Jess felt Dean’s hip bump into his thigh.

He _hoped_ that was Dean’s hip.

He coughed out another bitter laugh. Rory might be dying and Dean was too concerned with trying to kill Jess to help her. There wasn’t a thing he could say to argue his case, and why the fuck should he bother anyway?

“Does it matter?” Jess snarled. “You need to call an ambulance, you stupid piece of shit.”

Dean’s expression faltered. He glanced at the bedroom door, right beside them, and snapped his attention back to Jess. “What did you do?” he asked again, concern filtering through his anger. The pressure on Jess’ chest eased. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing.” Both of them turned at the sound of Rory’s voice, directly beside them. She was a little rumpled but perfectly alert. Jess’ heart skipped in overwhelming relief. Absently, he wondered how the hell she’d gotten there so quickly and quietly. Grace and athleticism were not Rory’s strong suits.

“Dean, what are you doing here?” She looked at Jess, and then at Dean’s arm, and then at Dean’s face, her expression darkening. “What are you doing to Jess?”

Dean pulled back, releasing his hold, and Jess’ weight hit the ground unevenly. He staggered, bumped into Dean’s chest, and rebounded into the wall again. He couldn’t help a little grunt of pain on impact. Both impacts.

“Rory,” Dean breathed. “You’re OK?”

“Yeah,” she said, glowering. Her pupils still looked odd, far too large.

“Are you sure?” Jess asked, pressing a hand to his sore chest, and both Rory and Dean looked surprised that he’d spoken. “You fainted, Rory.” She’d tried to kiss him and then fainted and now she was out here looking like she was mad at Dean. _Something_ wasn’t right.

Dean took a step toward Jess, pointing a finger at him, but Rory cut him off before he could say anything.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again, tone flat.

Dean scoffed, gesturing to the table and to Jess. “What is _he_ doing here, Rory? What’s going on?”

She put her hands on her hips. “He brought me food. It wasn’t planned. I should be able to have a Friday night to myself if I _ask_ you for it, Dean, and there’s no reason to go tossing him into walls. He was being nice.”

“Right!” Dean yelled. “_Nice_. Is that what you call _that_?” He pointed to Rory’s neck. “That’s really nice, Rory.”

“He didn’t give this to me.”

“That’s crap. You’re here, alone, with _Jess_, with a hickey, and a nice _dinner_,” Dean flapped his hands in the air sarcastically, “and I’m supposed to believe that none of these things are related? That’s a magical hickey that came from nowhere?” The volume of his voice increased as he spoke. Rory made no move to back away.

“If I’m wrong,” he spat, “then tell me what _is_ happening.”

Rory angled her body so she was fully facing Dean, her fingers flexing at her waist. Her jaw was tight, her eyes fixed on Dean’s, but she said nothing. It was a wonder to see her like this – posture oddly straight, attitude defiant – but it made Jess worry that there was something seriously wrong. Like a virus attacking her brain stem, maybe, or a tumor.

“Well?” Dean shouted, looming over her. “Say something!”

“Hey, back off!” Jess snapped, bracing himself for another impact. He was going to tackle the fuck out of Dean if he got any closer to Rory.

Dean’s entire face scrunched up in an angry twist. “I swear, Jess, I am this close to taking you outside and –”

“Dean!” Rory grabbed his face, forcing his attention back to her. “Stop it.”

Jess heard the _crack_ at the same time he saw Dean’s head twist around sharply in a movement so fast his mind hardly registered it. Rory let go her hold, leaving her hands in the air, fingers spread wide. Dean didn’t even have time to look surprised, his fingers giving one feeble spasm before he collapsed on the floor.

Jess’ stomach seized. _Fuck!_ He stumbled back into the wall, staring at Rory. She let her hands drop to her side slowly.

_What the fuck? What the fuck?_ He may have said it out loud.

Rory turned to him, her dark eyes wide and dancing. She smiled.

_Fuck_.


	2. In for a pound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forget it, Jess, it's vampiretown.

Jess came back to consciousness gradually, noting individual sensations as they filtered through his muddled brain. First was his head: it hurt. The pain originated at the top of his skull and radiated out in little waves that made his eyelids hurt when they tightened reflexively against encroaching awareness. Then his cheek, smashed uncomfortably against something flat and cool, and the odd tilt of his neck.

He cracked an eye open and made an unhappy noise when dim, yellowish light hit his senses. The light passed, replaced by darkness, and slid back over him again. He opened his other eye to stare at the dark, moving surface below him. 

_ That’s the road_, his mind supplied helpfully. 

He turned his gaze down to his lap, where his arms were crossed at the wrist, his palms up, fingers curled laxly. The seatbelt had been pulled across his arms, pinning his hands to his lap, and the chest restraint was pressed against his left shoulder and cutting into his chin. Jess righted himself slowly, extracting his hands from the seatbelt and rubbing the cheek that had been pressed against the window. 

He squinted irritably at the dash and he turned his heavy head to see Rory, her attention fixed on the road, hands sitting precisely at ten and two on the steering wheel. Panic bubbled in his stomach at the sight of her, his body urging him to find some kind of escape, before his brain caught up with the why of it: Rory’s hands on Dean’s face, the sound of breaking bones, her unsettling smile.

Jess sucked in a sharp breath and straightened, angling his body into the car door, as far away from Rory as he could get. She spared him a glance and uncomfortable smile.

“You’re up,” she said with forced lightness. 

Bracing himself against the car door, he squinted at her suspiciously. She didn’t seem like she was about to do him any sort of harm, he had to acknowledge, and he unclenched by degrees, trying to take in more of his surroundings. His coat was draped over his shoulders, and he pulled at it in confusion. The last thing he remembered was Rory approaching him in her kitchen. He hadn’t been wearing his coat. He had no memory of getting into the car.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “My head hurts. Did someone hit me?”

Rory looked at him, a frown lightly creasing her brow. “No, you fainted.”

“No,” he muttered, a little petulantly, “_you _ fainted. I dragged you to your bedroom.”

She didn’t acknowledge the correction. “I think maybe I died, actually.” Her voice was quiet and wondering. “Do you have to die all the way to become undead, or is it a transition phase, do you think? Like a halfway point before death?”

He turned to look at her closely then, the Rory-shaped person in the driver’s seat. The passing streetlights illuminated her—skin pallid, eyes eerie and blown out, a bite-mark bruise mottled and yellow on her neck. There was blood smeared across her cheek and a little drying in her hair. Where had that come from?

She shot another couple of quick looks at him, keeping her focus on the road. “I think I’m a vampire now,” she offered.

When he continued to stare at her blankly, she indicated her bruised neck with an impatient gesture.

“Oh,” he said, nodding, not because he was following along so much as he felt deeply that he didn’t want to irritate her. “Who bit you?”

“I can’t really remember,” she said in a rush. “That’s what’s really weird. I’ve been thinking and thinking about it and there’s nothing there. The other night I was walking home from Lane’s pretty late and there’s this chunk of time that’s just kind of … gone, and the next morning mom was teasing me about my huge hickey.”

“Huh,” Jess offered, looking down at his hands, which were folded somewhat primly in his lap. He furrowed his brow and shot another sideways look at her. There _ was _ , he had to acknowledge, blood on her face. Where _ had that come from_? 

“So, uh, where are we going?” he asked distractedly, rapping his fingers against his thigh.

Rory’s posture stiffened defensively. “Well I couldn’t leave a dead body in my kitchen, Jess.” She frowned at him and darted her eyes at the rearview.

For a long, awful moment, he thought she meant _ him_. She was driving him somewhere quiet—he’d noted that houses were further apart and foliage more dense—to kill him and dispose of his corpse. 

“I’m sorry?” His voice was flat.

Rory looked once again at the rearview mirror, then sideways to him, then back to the rearview, and her mouth went into a tight thin line.

Suddenly, his neck prickled with the sensation of being watched, and he remembered that _ Dean _ was now a dead body. A significant part of him was blaring alarms not to follow Rory's surreptitious glances into the backseat, but the even larger part of him that had no idea what self-preservation was moved his head anyway. 

He was not entirely surprised to meet the unseeing, glassy gaze of Dean Forrester, whose corpse had been unceremoniously stuffed into the back of Rory's car.

“Fuck!” Jess yelled, trying to twist away. “Fuck, fuck!” His arm was tangled in his seatbelt now and he jerked at it desperately.

“Calm down, Jess!” There was a scolding tinge to her concern.

He lowered his head to his knees, burying his face in his jacket. He shut his eyes tight against the image of Dean's oddly bent limbs and clearly broken neck. There was a substantial chunk of it missing now, around where he figured the carotid artery was. Jess let out a weird, garbled groan that was muffled by his coat.

“That’s right. Just breathe.” Rory’s voice was distant and a bit condescending. 

He left his forehead in his lap for a long moment. He had no rationalization for the blood on Rory’s face, the missing chunk of Dean’s neck, or the bite mark on Rory’s own neck, so he ignored all of that and unwittingly took Rory’s advice. He breathed slowly: in through his nose, out through his mouth.

Rory gave his back two awkward pats, which startled him into sitting up straight. The prickling sensation between his shoulder blades continued, pulling his attention behind him. A couple aborted glances over his shoulder confirmed it: nope. _ Nope_. He wasn’t going to look in the back seat. 

Desperate to talk about absolutely anything, Jess said, “So did you, uh….” _ Feed on Dean _ was the rest of the thought, and it caught in his throat. It was a terrible choice of conversation topic. 

He coughed. “You’ve got a little…” He made a vague gesture around his own face where there were bloody smears on hers. Unsure how to finish the sentence, he let his hand rest over his mouth and looked straight ahead.

“Oh,” Rory said, craning her neck to get a look at herself in the rearview mirror and rubbing at her cheek. She gave a small huff of irritation. “No reflection.”

_ Right right, vampires and many undead don't have reflections_, Jess thought distantly. _ That's gotta be weird. _

“Did I get it?” she asked, turning her face to him.

He caught her gaze again—her wide, dark, unsettling eyes. Absolutely she had not. And there was still the stuff in her hair.

Jess nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yep, you did.” He shifted, turning his focus back to the road. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. 

“So, vampires are…” he trailed off and held out an empty hand.

“Real, yes,” she supplied, nodding. “Didn’t you know?” She sounded genuinely surprised, which surprised him in turn.

He laughed uncomfortably. “Um, no? Maybe they just don’t cover that sort of thing in public schools, but the existence of vampires isn’t common knowledge. As far as I know.”

“Oh, weird. You haven’t read the Stars Hollow town charter?”

“What? No.”

She hummed disapprovingly. “Been to the Firelight Festival?”

He stared at her. “Not… really. Which one is that?”

“It’s the one about the _ literally _ star crossed lovers! They find their way to each other by following the stars.” Her voice was full of the wonder a person would use telling a fairy tale to children.

“OK, well, I don’t remember it. What does it have to do with vampires?”

“The lovers were vampires!” She shot him a _ duh _ look. “They each run away from their families and suffer trials and get separated and reunite by tracking the same strange pattern of stars. But the _ reason _ they were running away from home was they were vampires and had rained down bloody terror on their hometown. Vampire hunters chased them out. They evaded capture for a long time, traveling only by starlight, until an angry mob caught up with them and burned them to crisps in the exact spot the gazebo stands today.”

Jess fought down the bubble of absurd laughter that was rising in his throat, simply raising his eyebrows at her when she paused for acknowledgement. 

“And that’s why they celebrate the Firelight Festival with a bonfire,” she concluded.  
  
He watched her in silence. Rory was not, generally speaking, a good enough liar for this to just be her fucking with him. But then she was also not, generally speaking, a vampire. Which was something he supposed he believed in now? Or at least entertained the possibility of.

“All right,” he said cautiously. “Vampires are real. And all of Stars Hollow knows about it?”

“Anybody who’s been to the Firelight Festival knows about it.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Maybe if you ever participated in town events....”

Jess snorted. “So Stars Hollow is that town in _ The Wicker Man_.”

“Summerisle.”

“I _ know. _”

“And no, not at all,” she said primly. “Nobody sacrifices virgins for the harvest. That hasn’t happened in hundreds of years. Stars Hollow sometimes has vampires. And, sometimes, vampire hunters. As needed.”

Jess could only stare at her.

“It’s super different,” she added unnecessarily. 

He covered his face with his hands and groaned. 

“OK,” he said into his palms, “a vampire bit you two nights ago, infecting you with… vampirism.” Rory murmured assent. He dragged his hands down his face, cupping his chin in an exaggerated imitation of contemplation. “Tonight, you turned into a vampire. You subsequently murdered Dean and drank his blood. And now we’re going to toss his body into the woods.”

“Yes!” She sounded genuinely pleased that he was following. 

He tapped his fingers against his chin. “All right,” he said, sitting back in his seat. 

Jess closed his eyes. His head still throbbed, but it had dulled to an ache at the base of his skull. _ Surreal _ wasn’t the word for the situation. He wasn’t sure what was—it wasn’t as though he didn’t believe Rory. He had to. There was a corpse behind Jess’ shoulder with part of its neck missing that lent significant credence to her story. It wasn’t like he felt fine with what was happening, but he also wasn’t panicked, which was probably the strangest part. There wasn’t much he could do while stuck in a moving vehicle with a vampire and a corpse, he told himself. When he had space and he could think, that’s when it would all set in. 

When he reopened his eyes, the car’s headlights provided the only illumination ahead. There were no more street lights, and they were surrounded by trees. He looked at Rory, careful to tilt his head so he didn’t catch the dead body in his peripheral vision. She seemed relaxed, her spine curving into something much more similar to her normal slouch, her thumbs tapping the wheel mindlessly. 

She noticed his attention and flashed a smile at him, more natural than it had been so far during the car ride. She seemed to have taken his acquiescence to dumping Dean in the woods as tacit approval of her behavior. It was odd that she would care if he thought her murdering her boyfriend and drinking his blood was wrong when she could easily kill Jess as well.

He rubbed his neck at the pulse point. He remembered Rory’s breath on his skin just there, her lips lingering under his jaw, and shivered. Why was it Dean’s body in the backseat and not his? He had the sinking feeling there had been a hair’s breadth separation between Dean’s death tonight and his own. He rolled his shoulders as though he could shrug off the dread pulling at him from the back seat.

At last, Rory seemed satisfied with the remoteness of their location and pulled her car off the road. She killed the engine and twisted around to assess Dean. She made a face and mumbled something about his size that Jess ignored.

Shrugging on his jacket, Jess stepped out of the car. The temperature had dropped significantly since the sun went down, and the cold spring air smelled clean. He had never been to this area before. They were surrounded by tall, dark woods. It was too early in the season for any leaves, but dense branches rustled against each other in the breeze. If they weren’t about to ditch a corpse, it would have been a really lovely evening. 

He turned as Rory was getting out of the driver’s seat, peering into the back. She frowned as she walked around the hood toward Jess, fiddling with her own coat.

“Hey, uh, Rory.” Jess cleared his throat. Rory’s eyes met his questioningly as she pulled her zipper up to her neck.

He knew this was a bad time, he knew it was a dangerous subject, he _ did_, but he just couldn’t quite care. He couldn’t quite feel anything. “I know things got a little… tense, earlier, before Dean showed up.”

Her posture stiffened. “Oh?”

“After dinner? Back in the kitchen.” He waved his hand in a _ you know _ gesture. 

“Tense? Was it?” Her voice rose comically at the end of each question.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his palms against his thighs. “You weren’t by any chance thinking of... drinking my blood back there, were you?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. She shifted to her left foot, then her right. The car engine_ tick-tick-tick_ed as it cooled, setting a tempo for the uncomfortable silence.

“Rory!” Jess snapped. 

“Well I didn’t _ do _it!”

He pressed his hands against his eyes, groaning. “Oh my god.”

“I was feeling a lot of very confusing things, Jess!”

He laughed roughly. “Yeah, confusing is a word for it.” 

“This is something you’ve never gone through. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t judge me for how I felt or behaved when I _ actually died_.”

Jess huffed and shook his head, running his hands through his hair. “Well, why didn’t you?” he asked. 

“I’m sorry?”

“Kill me. You could have. It would have been easy. Why did you decide not to and to… bring me along?” He indicated the back seat of her car with a sweeping gesture. “For this?”

Rory bit her lip. "I thought you might know what to do," she said.

Jess gaped. "With a dead body?" His voice was embarrassingly thin and high.

Her eyebrows dipped together in a frown. "Well, you're... always... getting into trouble? Wearing...." She made a gesture that encompassed all of Jess' person and let out a frustrated breath. "I don't know! You do... crimes?"

He couldn't think of a thing to say, and they stared at each other in silence. 

"When have I committed _ any _ crimes?" he finally cried. 

Her jaw dropped open and she paused, apparently without a ready retort. She pointed a finger at him. "Underage drinking! You had beer out of mom's fridge!"

He laughed. "Yeah, I've also smoked weed, Rory. I took some stuff when I was bored that I _ put back_. Clearly I also have a bunch of hydrochloric acid around to melt down bodies in case my pen of wild boars is already too busy devouring the remains of my victims."

Rory’s annoyance cleared, replaced by confusion. "Can you melt down a body with hydrochloric acid?"

"I _ don't know_!" 

She scowled. "OK, so you’ve_ never _ killed anyone. You’ve _ never _ had to get rid of a body. You’ve _ never _ become a revenant and had to survive on the blood of the living. You’re _ so much _ better than I am. But I notice that you haven’t once objected to me killing Dean. You’re upset now because I _ thought _ about killing _ you_.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but she rushed ahead. “I think you’re glad that Dean’s dead, and really, that’s so typical of you. You could never even try to get along with him.”

“Get along?” Jess floundered. How on earth was she putting him on the defensive for not liking the boyfriend she killed with her bare hands? He was too disoriented for anything but honesty.

“No, I didn’t try to get along with him! Dean was a sentient six foot slab of beef who pissed circles around you like a territorial dog. Dean _ sucked_. I didn’t want him _ dead_. I just wanted him to leave you alone—ideally, because you would have chosen to break up with him.”

“And why is that?” She delivered the question with the confidence of someone playing their trump card. 

“Because I like you!” he yelled. “Holy shit! This is not hard!” 

Rory stared, gobsmacked. He’d seen that caught-in-the-headlights expression on her face before and it was never anything but frustrating. Finally, an identifiable, grounding emotion was snaking through him: anger.

“For a start,” he continued, heart racing and voice raised, “I think you shouldn’t be dating someone who’s as dull and possessive as Dean. You don’t _ have _ to be in a relationship, especially not if the main reason for staying together, as far as I can tell, is a vague sense of keeping everyone happy and liking you. Break ups happen all the time! 

“Second, and this should be incredibly obvious, _ I’m into you_. I wanted to kiss you back at your place. I thought you wanted that too, before I realized you were actually _ undead _ and thinking about eating me. And yes, part of what was exciting about that was the the giant middle finger it would be to Dean because _ fuck that guy_! If I had to choose between one of us dying, clearly I’m going to pick him. I guess in that sense, yes I am happy he’s dead. Dean sucked _ so much ass_, but I didn’t kill him! You did that! You snapped his neck! This is not on me!”

He set his shoulders, bracing himself for a counter attack, verbal or otherwise, but Rory said nothing. Her hands were in fists at her sides and her brow was furrowed, but to his surprise, she didn’t seem angry. She looked like she was sizing him up, reappraising him. 

When it was clear she had no rebuttal, Jess bounced his hands off his thighs heavily and rolled his eyes to the sky. 

"Do you want help getting him out of the back?" He indicated the car behind him with a tip of the head.

"Yes," Rory grumped, folding her arms tight to her chest. "I got him in by myself but it wasn't easy. I think I might have broken a bunch of his...." She stubbed a toe in the dirt. "You know. Bones."

He nodded and turned, yanking the car door open without further ceremony. Dean’s body followed the movement, his head and torso flumping heavily sideways and nearly hitting the ground. The hole Rory had ripped in Dean’s neck gaped wetly up at him. Jess’ stomach rolled. He sighed again and cast a look at Rory. 

“You’re stronger than I am,” he said. “Can you get this part? I’ll go to the other side and help lift.”

Together, they heaved the body out of Rory’s backseat and carried it awkwardly into the woods. 

“How far do you want to go?” he asked as he adjusted his grip around Dean’s knees. 

“I dunno exactly.” Rory had hooked her hands in Dean’s armpits to support his torso and was walking backwards. It was clear from the strange bend of his shoulders that she had, in fact, broken many of his bones in trying to shove him in her backseat. She kept looking over her shoulders to check her footing. “We can’t bury him, right?”

Jess laughed breathlessly. “No. You don’t have a shovel in your car, for a start.” 

“Then, I guess… here,” she said, and let go as soon as she said it, dropping Dean’s head and shoulders to the ground. The weight dragged Jess down and he dropped the legs before it pulled him to his knees.

He _ might _ have accused her of doing it on purpose because she was annoyed with him, but he didn’t have the energy to keep up the verbal equivalent of a slap fight with Rory, so he just straightened and gave her a wry look. She quirked an eyebrow in response.

Glancing around quickly, Jess noted that they were barely into tree cover, and he was fairly certain this was a forest preserve with walking trails. If Rory was happy with their half-assed body disposal, it was good enough for him. He just wanted the night to be over. He brushed his palms off on his pants and turned to leave.

“Hang on,” Rory said. She jerked a thumb at the corpse. “I’m going to take care of something real quick.”

His face must have telegraphed the alarmed curiosity that shot through him, because Rory sighed and clarified, “I’m not going to do anything horrifying. I’m just gonna… top up the ol’ tank.” She cleared her throat. “Make sure I don’t get hungry again soon.”

Some might consider feeding on a corpse horrifying, Jess thought, but left it alone. 

“OK,” he said quietly, indicating the woods with a “go on” tilt of his head. “I’ll wait at the car.” 

Not wanting to wait for a reaction or reply, he turned and made the short walk out of the woods to Rory’s car. He leaned his back against the it, crossing his arms tight against his body, and tipping his head up to the sky. There was a three-quarter moon tonight, thankfully bright, silhouetting everything in a slightly unearthly glow.

When he thought about it, he probably should be more upset about Dean’s death than he was. He let himself chalk it up to the effects of shock. He had to admit, he’d switched Dean’s entire existence to the past tense pretty easily. 

He should also be more worried about Rory, who had easily bundled Jess unconscious into the car, who had kept him around because she thought he would help dispose of a body. Now that his purpose was served _and_ he had convinced her he had no criminal expertise to make him useful, well, they were already in the woods and it would hardly matter to add a second body. He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t afraid of her.

It probably wasn't that Rory was correct, that he just didn't care that she'd killed Dean as long as it meant that she'd chosen Jess over him. He rolled his neck, shifting uncomfortably.

Rory came out of the woods with fresh smears of blood on her chin and cheeks. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and wiped at her face, furrowing her brow and grimacing.

“What is it?” he asked, straightening. “Something wrong?”

“Ugh. Things coagulate faster than I thought.” She paused in rubbing her face and looked at him, frown deepening. “Have you ever had one of those boba tea drinks, with the tapioca balls? And they get kind of stuck in the straw and you have to suck _ really hard_—”

He nodded frantically, holding a hand out to stop her. “I get it.”

Rory went back to wiping the blood off her cheek. “How’d I do? Did I get it all this time?” she asked, tipping her chin up and stepping closer. 

His breath caught as she moved into his space, closing her eyes. Her hands were relaxed at her sides. She was much stronger than he was, but it was a vulnerable position to put herself in. It occurred to him distantly that this second feeding might be an assurance to him that she wasn’t going to try to kill him to eat. Tonight, at least.

Jess sighed. “Here,” he said, moving forward gently. He dug his handkerchief out of his coat pocket and held it out in the moonlight, silently asking permission. Her eyes snapped up to his, curious and searching. He held her gaze and stayed still. 

Rory nodded, arcing her neck further, offering her blood-streaked face to him. Tentatively, he put his left hand up to her cheek, bracing her, and used his other hand to clean her. Her skin wasn’t cold. Noticeably cooler than his, but not something he would have picked up on if he hadn’t been thinking about it. 

“It’s not wet, so it might not be extremely effective,” he murmured, “but I’m not about to do that thing my mom used to do where you clean people’s faces off with spit. Like _ that’s _ hygienic.”

She smiled and a small puff of laughter came out of her nose. “My mom never did that to me,” she said, her speech flattened slightly as she held still as possible.

“Huh. Lucky.” He pulled a chunk of drying blood from her hair, holding it up for her to see. “Just some gore,” he explained before tossing it away. “And that’s probably as good as you’re gonna get without access to running water.”

“Thank you,” she said, ducking her head and stuffing her hands deep in her coat pockets. “Let’s get back home.”

The ride back was subdued. Neither of them spoke much, but the atmosphere wasn’t quite uncomfortable. According to the clock on Rory’s dash, they pulled up to the diner a little after 10:30. 

“Jess. Wait.” He stopped with his fingers on the door handle, but turned to look at her. “I wanted to kiss you, too. Earlier. Back in my kitchen.” 

That startled him. He twisted to face Rory fully, dropping his hand off the door, attention fixed on her. She killed the engine and he, surprised again, reached up to switch the dome light to the “on” position. He felt confident—reasonably confident, like 93% sure—that Rory wasn’t going to hurt him, but he didn’t love the idea of being in a dark, confined space with her. And Rory saying she wanted to kiss him was somehow one of the more unbelievable things that had happened tonight. He needed to see her face as she talked. 

“It’s true that I was confused,” Rory continued, furrowing her brow at his action but not commenting on it. “I kind of felt like biting you and I felt like kissing you, but I didn’t know what was happening.” She swallowed roughly and looked sideways at him. He stayed silent, but tipped his head to let her know she could go on. She nodded. “And I didn’t want to bite you. I _ had _ to bite _ someone_.”

Rory cleared her throat and readjusted her hands on the wheel, gripping nervously. “I never feel that kind of pull toward anything. I always have to deliberate, make lists, and come to the correct, logical conclusion. You were right, before.” Jess’ eyebrows shot up and she quickly added, “Kind of. I do a lot of things just to keep other people happy. But tonight, there was no guilt. No worry about what someone else might think of me. It was... nice.”

She chanced another quick look at Jess, who apparently looked receptive enough for her to continue. “And then I … died, I guess, or transitioned fully into a vampire. I’m not sure what happened when I passed out. When I woke up, everything I’d been feeling was ramped up by a massive degree. Logarithmic increase. I was pretty sure I was going to go into the kitchen and do my best to bite you and _ not _ kill you, but I didn’t know how to do that.

“And then _ Dean _ was there, and he was big and mad and uninvited, and I was _ so mad_.” She shrugged and kept her face mostly turned away. The dome light cast a harsh yellow hue on her pale skin. “And I wasn’t confused about how I felt about him.” 

Bizarrely touched, Jess nodded in understanding. “So you killed him.”

Her shoulders tucked up even higher around her ears and she stared pointedly out the window, nowhere near meeting his gaze. “I can’t say I feel great about it, but I also can’t say I feel bad. Might have lost certain compunctions in the whole... turning thing.” She twirled her finger in a circle in the air. 

“Such as the willingness to murder people for food.” He kept his tone light.

“Such as,” she agreed, nodding. “That’s probably an important thing for you to know if we’re going to keep hanging out.” Rory continued to pointedly not look at his face. She seemed genuinely nervous, or uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure which. Both, probably. Adrenaline had worn off for both of them, and now they were just two teenagers sitting in her car.

Jess fidgeted with the hem of his jacket. “So what you’re saying is, as long as you at least kind of want to kiss me, I should be safe.”

She huffed out a laugh at that, a shy and genuine smile on her lips, and he couldn’t help returning it with a smirk of his own. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said. This time, her sideways glance at him was teasing. “You better stay alluring.”

He barked out a laugh and nodded. “Thanks for sharing all that. Not the… just right now, but before. How you’re feeling.” She bit her lip and nodded. “A lot has happened tonight, Rory. Let’s put a pin in this,” he gestured to the space between them, “and come back to it later. But we can keep... hanging out.”

Rory met his gaze then, startled but definitely pleased. “OK,” she said, and tucked some hair behind her ear in a gesture so completely Rory it constricted his lungs. 

Clearing his throat subtly, he said, “So you’re a creature of the night now.” 

Rory bobbed her head in agreement. “I guess so.”

“What are you gonna do until morning?”

“I dunno,” she said on an exhale, nervously adjusting her seatbelt. “The house is empty. Mom’s not home until tomorrow afternoon. What do vampires do when they aren’t hunting down prey? Prowl? Lurk?”

Jess tilted his head consideringly. “Skulk, manifest eldritch horrors in the dreams of their victims that will haunt their waking hours.”

“Yeah, so. That should keep me busy for a while.” 

“You want company?” 

She looked at him sharply, eyebrows practically up to her hairline. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he said, drawing it out thoughtfully. “Tonight has, frankly, been fucked up. I’m not going to sleep for a while, and I don’t think it would be good for either of us to sit up alone all night in the dark. What do you say? Movie marathon?” 

Rory beamed at him. He didn’t know what possessed him to offer it, but he also really could not bring himself to give a shit about the sharp incisors in that smile, and he grinned back.

“Let me just get a couple things and leave a note for Luke,” he said, motioning to the diner with his head. “I’ll be right back.”

Jess slipped into the diner in near silence. All the furniture was covered in plastic and power tools were laid out on the counter, even though it was completely dark and no work was being done. He knew it was just the weirdness of the evening, but the diner felt eerie in the bright moonlight. Air blowing through the vents rustled plastic sheeting, creating an unnatural sound of movement around the diner. 

The thought_ Stars Hollow is a vampire town founded and occasionally inhabited by vampires _drifted through his thoughts, and he swallowed roughly. 

With anxious energy pressing against his ribcage, Jess tossed a look out the window to make sure Rory was waiting for him. The car was still off, and she was watching him. She gave a little wave. Feeling utterly stupid, he waved back and jogged to the stairs.

For the first time, Jess was grateful for Luke’s early-to-bed habits. His uncle’s heavy snores were familiar, expected, and soothing. He packed a small overnight bag and stuck a note (reading simply “@ Gilmores’”) on the door at eye level, all while Luke slept soundly. It wasn’t that he had any issues deflecting Luke about the night so far, but his uncle’s moods were mercurial, and Jess was about tapped out on confrontations for the night.

When he was nearly at the bottom of the stairs, he slowed. He could swear he heard movement. Something more than the plastic rustling. Or maybe the rustling before had been more than plastic sheeting. There was a chance it was just Rory, but luck had not been with him so far tonight. 

He emerged from the curtain cautiously and immediately saw a slender, shadowed figure peering out the diner’s front door. _ Stars Hollow is a vampire town, _he thought again, panic rising in his chest.

Jess cleared his throat, and the figure turned to him with the ease of someone greeting an expected house guest. There was very little light in the diner, but Jess realized with a start that he recognized the man. It was one of Tom’s construction crew. Had he been here the whole time, after close? While Luke got ready for bed upstairs?

“Oh, hey man,” Jess said, nonsensically ultra-casual at catching someone lounging in the diner after hours. “You’re one of Tom’s, right? Was it Daryl?”

“Hey, yeah,” Daryl said, slipping his hands into his pockets and grinning easily. His features were almost painfully angular, his smile predatory. “It’s nice that you remembered. Most people don’t bother.” 

Daryl’s eyes glittered in the meager light, and without any sound reasoning behind it, certainty shot through Jess: _ vampire_. His throat constricted. 

It had been really stupid not to consider before how Rory had been bitten, or how many other vampires might be in town now if there was at least one. With a sinking heart, Jess recalled the construction crew’s muddled incompetence and Tom’s insistence that it was the effect of making them work during the day. 

“Ah, yeah,” Jess replied, trying desperately to maintain a facade of normalcy, buying time. “What are you doing here after hours? There’s no construction going on.” 

Daryl laughed. “Oh, sure it is,” he said. “I was just taking a rest in the back room.” 

Jess said nothing. He could point out that the diner was completely dark, that there was no one else here, or that it was on its face an unbelievable excuse, but there was no point. Daryl was standing directly in front of Jess’ only exit. Jess shifted his weight, readying himself to sprint.

Daryl pointed out the window, maintaining eye contact with Jess. “That your girlfriend?” he asked. 

Jess knew it was a bad idea to look away, but he glanced at Rory’s car to see her very dark outline behind the wheel. She’d turned off the dome light, and he couldn’t see what she was doing. 

When he turned his attention back to Daryl, the vampire was already on the move, coming toward Jess with unsettling, fluid speed. Jess ditched his bag immediately and bolted, swerving behind the counter in an attempt to put some distance between them. He reached the other end of the diner and grabbed a chair from where it was stacked on a table and whipped around, holding it in front of him like a shield. He could only hope Rory noticed and had enough interest in him to put in the effort to save his neck. Literally.

Daryl stopped a few feet away, out of striking distance, a malevolent smile twisting his lips. “What are you going to do with that?” he asked, his tone light and mocking. He lunged for Jess and Jess swung the chair as hard as he could, making solid connection with Daryl’s head. He hit the ground heavily and Jess backed up again, making his way to the door.

With something akin to betrayal on his face, Daryl looked up at Jess. “Ow!” he snapped. “Fucking _ ow _!” There was no more amusement evident as he moved nimbly to his feet and prowled toward Jess, intercepting his escape route. 

There was a huge thud against the door, and Jess and Daryl turned to see Rory with her hand pressed flat against the glass, her eyes wide and glinting dangerously. He had never thought he'd be so happy to see someone looking genuinely murderous. "Jess!" she cried, muffled through the glass, slapping her palm against the door again. 

He took the moment of distraction to put more distance between him and Daryl. His mind raced.

"I invite you in!" he cried. "Traverse the threshold! What do you need me to say?"

Rory slammed her hand against the door again and raised her eyebrows at him. She tugged deliberately on the handle. "It's _ locked_," she said, enunciating the words slowly, like she thought him a bit dim.

He felt mortified for one full second, in which he had to parry a swipe from the vampire with his impromptu chair shield, when he remembered that Rory had not only broken someone's neck earlier that evening, but easily carried their dead weight around.

"Break it down!" He thought he sounded a bit frantic. "I don't really have a free hand right now, Rory."

He kept his focus on Daryl, but caught Rory frowning at him in his periphery. "This is Luke's diner!" she said, sounding offended. "I don't want to break in." 

Jess laughed raggedly, blocking another strike with chair legs. Murder ranked significantly below B&E in Rory's moral calculus. That was good to know. 

"If you don't break it, I will, because this fucker's going to kill me," he warned. He was being corralled, Daryl slowly moving him to get his back against something. Jess was going to run out of paths sooner or later. 

His ankle caught on something and he stumbled backwards, letting out an undignified squawk on his way down. He tried to keep the chair between him and Daryl, but that just meant all of the vampire’s weight came down on it and pinned Jess to the ground, knocking the wind out of him.

To his enormous relief, he heard glass breaking. Daryl’s face was close to his—far too close—his fangs glistening in the dim light. His eyes were completely blown out, no visible iris, just huge, dark voids as hungry and gaping as his mouth. 

Suddenly, the weight was gone, and Daryl was out of his line of vision. Jess gasped for breath, relief briefly overwhelming him. He rolled onto his side to see Rory fling Daryl across the room in a disquieting display of strength. She launched herself after the vampire as he landed, grappling him briefly to the ground.

Thinking quickly, Jess scrambled to his feet and into the back room, pawing frantically through the dry goods on the shelves. He hoped that at least some of the vampire lore he’d absorbed growing up with Liz Danes, hopeless gothic romantic, was based in reality. She’d been dismissive of the folklore that vampires had an obsessive need to count items, but it stuck with Jess as fascinating. Revenants with arithmomania had root in multiple cultures, and there was so little glamor to it that it seemed to him something that might have ties, however slim, to truth.

He grabbed a sack of quinoa and ran back into the diner, tearing a hole in the bag as he went. Rory and Daryl were both on their feet, an angry tangle of limbs and curses. They knocked into a table, sending a chair to the ground with a huge crash. 

It was amazing to him that Luke hadn’t woken up yet. If he hadn’t just been upstairs and heard his uncle snoring, he would be certain at this point that the vampire had already killed him. He had a brief mental image of Luke in his bed with his neck torn open like Dean’s. How close they’d been to that reality pissed Jess off.

“Have some quinoa, you fuck!” Jess yelled, dumping grains on the floor by Daryl’s feet. 

Confused, Rory and Daryl paused—Rory had her hand around Daryl’s neck, and Daryl had a fistful of Rory’s jacket. They stared at Jess, frozen in combat, and his breath shortened under their scrutiny. 

“There!” he cried, frustrated, gesturing to the spilled quinoa. Both Rory and Daryl’s gaze snapped to the ground. 

For an absurd moment, he thought they might attack him for doing something so stupid, and he backed up a step. At least they might slip on the grains if they came after him. 

Then, almost as one, they dropped to their knees and began counting the grains one at a time. He watched for a stunned moment as Rory impatiently tucked hair behind her ear and muttered under her breath, pulling the counted quinoa into a tidy pile separate from Jess’ spill. Daryl tucked his legs beneath him criss-cross and made his own pile on his lap, his fangs still on threatening display.

Jess let out an embarrassing gurgle of a laugh at the sight before realizing he hadn’t fixed anything. Rory was just as distracted as Daryl, and if he pulled her away, he would be leaving a vampire in the diner with his uncle.

Cursing to himself, Jess ran into the back room once again. He scanned quickly for something that might work as a stake: an assortment of large knives, a meat thermometer, and the power tools Daryl and his crew hadn’t put away at the end of the day. Jess grinned and grabbed a reciprocating saw.

He emerged into the dining area holding the saw in the air, but Rory and Daryl were still too busy counting to notice. Jess used their distraction to stride confidently behind Daryl, place a bracing hand on the back of the vampire’s neck, and position the saw against his back. Jess was surprised by his own assurance when he depressed the trigger. 

Daryl shrieked, an unearthly sound of pain that stood Jess’ hair on end but didn’t give him any pause. There were a horrible few moments where the saw’s teeth caught solid flesh and rebelled, and Jess had to lean in with all of his body weight. His only trepidation was for the integrity of the saw blade and the fear it might break before it reached Daryl’s heart. 

Desperate and agonized, Daryl thrashed, scattering the quinoa in his lap. He nearly bucked Jess off, but Jess’ grip on the saw and the saw teeth’s deep seat in Daryl kept him standing. Jess cursed and shifted his weight, planting a foot on the vampire’s back to hold him down. Exhilaration surged Jess forward, pressing the body beneath him into the floor and grinding the saw in deeper. In retaliation, Daryl flailed his arms in an attempt to reach any part of Jess to inflict harm, but the angle made it fruitless. 

Rory’s attention split between counting the quinoa and Daryl’s protracted death. She had scooted away from the thrashing limbs, bringing her tidy pile with her. Her eyes flicked from Jess’ face to the floor, and he couldn’t quite read her expression in his periphery, but he could have sworn she was smiling. 

He knew he finally hit the mark when Daryl abruptly stopped screaming, muscles frozen in a rictus of pain. His body slumped forward, pulling the saw and Jess with it. Immediately, the body withered—not to dust, but into an ancient, rotted husk, skin sallow and beginning to slough off the bones. Jess jumped back with a sound of alarm, leaving the reciprocating saw embedded in the vampire’s back.

Rory was still counting on the floor, but she glanced sideways at Daryl’s corpse between grains, grimacing. Jess grabbed her by the wrists, pulling her away from the quinoa pile and scattering what she’d had in her hand. She resisted—and she was far stronger than he—until he snapped, “Rory. _ Rory_. Look at me!”

When he had her attention, he pulled her to her feet and cupped her face in his hands. “Just look at me. You don’t have to count anymore. OK?”

She nodded mutely. When she tried to turn back to her task, he snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Rory!” 

She gasped and looked into his eyes, her expression remote. Slowly, her brow furrowed and her gaze sharpened. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, clearly annoyed. “I could have taken that guy by myself.” 

Jess rubbed her upper arms and laughed, relieved. “There we go,” he said. “I know you had that handled. But you saved my ass and I wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt.” He looked her up and down. “_Did _you get hurt?” 

She scowled. “He landed a couple of hits, but it’s fine. I was _ fine_.” 

“OK,” he said, so awash with endorphins he would have conceded to almost anything she said. “Sorry about the quinoa. Just stay focused on that corner of the diner,” he pointed over his shoulder, “while I sweep all this up.”

“Hey,” she said, holding him back with a touch to the shoulder. Smiling softly, she brushed a thumb across his cheek. When she pulled it back, it was bloody. “Got a little something on your face,” she said. 

A semi-hysterical laugh burst out of him. “Thanks,” he said, grinning.

He swept up the quinoa quickly, not wanting Rory to get distracted again, and dumped it in the trash. When he looked up, she was waiting for him in a small pool of broken glass by the door, backlit by the gentle glow of moonlight and street lamps. The shards glittered below her. She smiled, holding out his bag to him. 

“Come on,” she said. 

Jess stepped forward, feet crunching in the glass, and took it from her. Her arm stayed outstretched, palm open, and she practically thrummed with a quiet energy he felt fizzing through his own body. 

_ In for a penny_, he thought giddily. 

Jess grabbed her hand and grinned. Her smile widened in response, the dark blue of her eyes nearly glowing. Abruptly, she turned on her heel and took off, pulling Jess behind her. He went willingly, following her into the night.


	3. Interstitial 1: Before Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter with no murder. Rory and Jess keeping company through the night.

**11:07 PM**

Jess let his weight drop onto the couch, exhaustion giving a hard electric edge to the adrenaline energy keeping him awake. Rory followed him, but hovered uncomfortably by the tv instead of sitting down.

“What should we do?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Whatever. We have hours before sunrise. We don’t have to figure it out immediately.” He gestured to the empty expanse beside him on the couch. “But let’s not watch _ Before Sunrise _,” he added. 

Rory snorted softly and perched herself straight-spined on the opposite end of the couch. He gave her a curious look and she sighed, unfolding her body into a deliberately casual lean.

“This is a little weird,” she said self-consciously. 

Jess laughed. “Yeah, _ this _ is definitely the weird part of the night.” 

**11:12 PM**

“You could give me a tour of your house,” he offered. She narrowed her eyes at him. He held out his hands defensively. “This is the first time I’ve been openly invited in since I got into town, and I didn’t even stay that first night.”

Rory shifted back, folding her arms over her chest. “That’s on you,” she said. “You’ve seen almost every room except for upstairs anyway.” 

“So show me that.” Her gaze narrowed further. “Unless you have a different idea.”

**11:17 PM**

“And that’s the upstairs bathroom,” Rory said, waving her hand at the toilet and sink. 

Jess nodded. “Neat. Definitely has all the component parts you’d expect in a bathroom.” 

**11:24 PM**

Back in the living room, they watched each other from their respective ends of the sofa.

“So where does your mom keep the beer?” Jess asked, rolling off the couch and sauntering to the kitchen. “Did she hide it? Relocate it after I infiltrated?” 

“Jess! Stop it, don’t drink Mom’s beer.” Rory tried to mimic his fluid roll to her feet, but miscalculated and fell to the floor. “Oof.”

He turned and walked backward, keeping eye contact with her as he went. “Isn’t it what I’m supposed to do? Thought I was the criminal element,” he said, hitting the consonants hard in _ criminal element _. 

“Jess!” Rory called, springing to her feet and jogging after him. “Come on, it’s not funny.”

“I know. It’s very serious,” he agreed, putting on a look of concern. “Beer is a gateway to all sorts of terrible things. Sex, drugs, wine spritzers.” 

She was faster than he was and just barely made it to the fridge before he did. She rested her back against its door, hands tucked behind her, blocking his path.

“If you get drunk, you’ll get sleepy,” she said, crossing her arms and titling her chin to look up at him. “If you fall asleep, you won’t be any use to me.”

And if he wasn’t any use to her, maybe she’d kill him, was the clear underlying message. She was putting on a casual-cool threatening air that wasn’t working for her at all. He’d seen her up close when she was genuinely considering murder, and this wasn’t it.

“Wow, scary,” Jess said, widening his eyes at her in mock horror. He reached around her for the fridge door. 

Lightning quick, she grabbed his arm. He raised his eyebrows at her. She might be faster and stronger than he was, but she was probably still ticklish, and she had stopped his hand right at her waist. 

**11:30 PM**

Jess sat at the kitchen table, one hand curled protectively over what would probably turn into a black eye. Rory turned from the freezer and offered him a plastic baggie of ice.

“Sorry,” she muttered, pulling out the chair across from him and landing in it heavily. “I didn’t mean to elbow you that hard.”

He sighed, tilting his head back and resting the baggie on his face with a wince. “Nope. Don’t apologize. I really should have seen that coming.” 

**11:37 PM**

“We didn’t come back here to mope,” Jess pointed out after the second solid minute of tense silence. “My eye will be fine. Can we put on a movie please?”

Rory had sunk as far down into her chair as she could, hands tucked deep under her elbows. She tried her best to maintain her wallow, but Jess noticed her perk up.

“What movie?” she asked with forced disinterest.

The baggie was leaking cold water down Jess’ wrist. He shifted his grip from the left hand to the right. “Just dig out whatever weirdness you want and put it on. I’ll make popcorn.”

Rory stiffened, a look of horror on her face. 

“Oh my god. Can vampires eat popcorn?” she asked, aghast. 

**11:42 PM**

She spat a few kernels of popcorn directly into the trash. “That tastes like… like _ ass _!” she yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at the garbage can. 

Holding the popcorn bag in front of him like a shield, Jess fought back a laugh. He could tell she was genuinely upset, and part of him did feel bad for her, but he’d never seen her this furious about anything. And it was over snacks. And she was so bad at swearing. 

He tried to cover his smile by shoving popcorn in his mouth, but the willful display of his food-eating ability was clearly taken as an affront, and Rory stared at him wide-eyed. 

Impotent frustration spilled over and she balled her hands into angry little fists. “Shit-ass _ butts _!” 

**11:52 PM**

Jess ate cautiously. Rory was watching him with narrowed eyes. He really didn’t like whatever she was thinking that was making her look at him like that. 

Proving his instincts correct, she asked, “If you ate that whole bag and then I drank a little of your blood, do you think I could taste the popcorn?”

He glared at her outright. “If I dumped this out on the floor, do you think you’d be compelled to count each piece?”

Rory sucked in a breath through her teeth, spine straightening in surprise. The look she gave him was halfway between dubious and challenging. Almost like she didn’t believe he’d follow through.

Maintaining a stony expression, Jess looked around the kitchen. “Bet there’s a bag of rice in here somewhere, too. You’d be at that for a long time.”

They locked eyes for a moment—Rory skeptical, Jess stoic. He had to imagine his one slightly swollen eye was giving his look more credit. Rory broke first. 

“Oh my god, don’t,” she groaned, lowering her forehead into her open palms. “Speaking of that little stunt back at the diner, should I be worried about how easily you killed a vampire?” 

“Should I be worried about how easily you killed a mortal?”

She lifted her head, frowning at him hard, but she didn’t seem to have a rebuttal. 

“All right then,” Jess said with finality. “Don’t try to kill me or drink my blood and I won’t be a danger to you.”

She frowned harder, but she looked more focused than upset, sizing him up when he defied her expectations. He held eye contact with her and tossed more popcorn into his mouth.

**12:23 AM**

Rory was tucked into the corner of the couch closest to the wall, the glow of the tv providing the only illumination, flashing color across her skin. Jess was theoretically at the other end of the couch, but splayed out enough that very little space separated their limbs. 

“Did you ever have a crush on Bowie in this movie?” he asked. 

Rory shook her head. “This really never did it for me.”

“Bet your mom _ loves _ him in this.” She cast him a suspicious sideways glance. “Bet she does her hair weird and sings along with everything.”

Rory’s mouth puckered in a way that made him think she was suppressing a smile. She kept her focus on the screen. “You know you’re not as clever as you think you are.”

Jess took that as confirmation that he’d guessed right about all of it. He crossed his arms loosely over his chest. He’d seen _ Labyrinth _ a lot in his youth and it couldn’t hold his attention enough to keep him awake.

“Would you eat Bowie for food?” he asked.

Rory turned her head to him slowly, expression full of fascinated horror. She narrowed her eyes. “How hungry am I in this scenario?”

“Hungry enough that you’re thinking about eating David Bowie,” he replied.

“Is there anyone else around who I could eat first?”

“Don’t complicate it. You need food, Bowie is there. Yes or no, do you eat him?”

Rory worried her bottom lip, looking genuinely conflicted. 

Jess nodded. “You’re considering, which means there’s a situation in which you would do it. I’ll mark that down as a yes.”

**12:27 AM**

“Jennifer Connelly?”

The edges of Rory’s mouth turned down, considering. “Sure. I’d eat her.”

“Frank Oz?”

Her eyes widened. “Miss Piggy? Director of Little Shop of Horrors? _ Yoda _ ? I would _ never _.” 

“OK. What about the kid who plays Sarah’s little brother?”

“You’re just being an asshole now.”

“I’m not hearing a no.”

**12:35 AM**

“Rick Moranis.” 

“Yeah, for sure.”

“Steve Martin?”

“Yeah.”

“This is brutal.”

“This is survival, Jess. Shut up for a second, I like this scene.”

**12:50 AM**

“Queen Elizabeth II?” 

Rory snorted. “Don’t tell my mom, but I never cared about the royal family. I would decimate that whole brood without a second thought.” 

**2:08 AM**

Leaning her chin on her knee, Rory pressed herself as much into Jess’ space as she could. “You remind me of the babe,” she said.

Refusing to take the bait, Jess simply blinked at her. His eyes stung from lack of sleep.

“The babe with the power,” she continued, undaunted. 

Jess peered into the popcorn bag he was holding and gave it a shake. It was the second one he’d made, and he was past full, but Rory’s clear jealousy of his ability to eat it was giving him energy to stay awake. 

“The power of voodoo!”

He regarded Rory closely. “I’m not singing the song with you,” he said, voice firm. “And we aren’t watching it again. It just ended.”

She narrowed her eyes, as though she could make him say his half of the lines through sheer force of will. If vampires were supposed to have psychic abilities, Rory’s needed work.

Unaffected, Jess shook his head. “Pick a different movie. You have about a billion.”

**2:19 AM**

“I can’t pick one,” she moaned, dropping a DVD case dramatically into her lap. “Nothing seems compelling right now.”

“We are not watching _ Labyrinth _ again.”

**2:24 AM**

Forgetting the bruise on his face, Jess scrubbed at his tired eyes. He winced. “I will absolutely fall asleep if we don’t find something to do soon, Rory.”

She swiveled to him, hands on her hips, mouth twisted in contemplation. Her eyebrows went up. 

“What about books?”

**2:48 AM**

They were at opposite ends of the couch facing each other, reading, each with their legs stretched out. Rory’s feet were nestled between Jess’ hip and the cushions and Jess’ were just over the edge of the couch by Rory’s elbow, crossed at the ankles. 

Rory laid her book in her lap and nudged him with her foot. 

“Hey,” she said, louder than she had to. “So why did your mom ship you to Stars Hollow?”

Keeping his focus on what he was reading, he said, “You are not paying Adrienne Reich the attention she deserves.” 

“I’ve read it before.” She shoved him harder with her foot. “Why were you sent here?”

He let out a long sigh. “Lots of things. I was butting heads with Liz constantly and she was tired of me. I think the final straw was when I smoked some of her weed. She tried so hard to be self righteous with me for using drugs. It was actually really funny.” 

He pursed his lips to fight back a shitty smile. He really should not find his mom’s babbling anger as funny as he did, hypocritical as that anger might be.

“That’s it?” Rory’s brow was creased in a deep frown. “You got high and she sent you away?”

Jess didn’t look up from the book. “It was the culmination of a lot of things. She was tired of it. And I did _ not _ get along with her boyfriend at the time, and I think she’s living with him now.” 

Rory’s frown morphed into something bordering outrage. “She wanted to shack up with some dude?”

Her affront on his behalf was oddly soothing. He would normally snark about Liz’s parenting, but now he settled further into the couch and conceded, “To be fair, I can be extremely annoying.”

A truly impressive furrow was forming between her eyebrows. She huffed, folded her arms, huffed again, and then her expression cleared. He glanced up from his book as he flipped a page to catch an alarming look of dark amusement on her face.

“Don’t,” he said, stomach dropping.

“Don’t what?”

“That look. Liz is not on the eat or not eat list. Not hypothetically, not as a joke, not even to stick up for me in some incredibly backward way. Don’t even consider it.” 

Rory’s mouth went into a straight, thin line. 

“Do not,” Jess repeated firmly.

“It’s well intentioned,” she groused.

“Rory!”

“Fine,” she huffed, tossing her hands in the air. “Not even hypothetically.”

He kept watching her for a moment. “Good,” he conceded, turning his attention back to reading.

Rory bopped at his thigh rapidly with her foot. “What about the dude she’s shacking up with?” 

Jess frowned. “Ron?”

Rory raised her eyebrows. He took in a breath, ready to argue, and stopped. It wasn’t that it was a _ good _ idea. It was just interesting.

“You’re considering,” she said, her smile positively shit-eating. “I’ll mark that down as a yes.”

**3:26 AM**

Jess stifled a yawn and gave himself a mental shake. He still had the book open and was reading, but he needed more mental stimulation to stay focused. 

“That dude at the diner,” he said, still skimming the page, “Daryl. Do you think he’s the guy who bit you?”

Baffled, Rory dropped her book in her lap again. “He had a name?”

Jess snorted. A more appropriate question would be why Jess knew the name, not confusion over the man _ having _ one. 

“Yeah, he was on Tom’s construction crew, doing work on the diner.”

“Ohhhh.” Rory tipped her head back, mouth falling open in understanding. “That’s why he was there.” 

“Did you think it was just a sudden vampire infestation in Stars Hollow?”

She shrugged. It was going to take a while to adjust to her utter nonchalance about vampires. Maybe more time than it would take to adjust to the reality of them.

“I dunno,” she said. “Who can say how many are out there? If vampires were working at Luke’s, there’s a decent chance of correlation.”

She pushed herself up straighter, pointing a finger at Jess. “But the crew was always working during the day! Did any of them ever burst into flames or… vampire dust?”

Jess blinked. “Not while I was there,” he replied dryly. 

Rory clapped her hands enthusiastically. “Daywalker!” she said, and hastily amended, “I mean, maybe. I don’t know what the sun’s effects will be, but it doesn’t sound like it’s instant death!”

“Congratulations,” Jess said on a yawn, surprising himself by meaning it. 

**4:02 AM**

Jess’ head lolled to his chest and snapped back up. He blinked rapidly. The book was open in his lap, and the spot on the couch across from him was empty. He hadn’t heard Rory get up.

“Rory?” he called, rubbing his forehead. 

“Yeah?” Her voice came from behind him, far enough away to at least be in the kitchen. He craned his neck, twisting to look over the arm of the couch. 

Her head poked out from her bedroom. “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m just doing some research on the internet. You can go to sleep.” 

Jess started to mumble a reply, but she was gone, back into her bedroom. 

He sighed, dragging a hand down his face, and curled onto his side, pulling the closed book to his chest. He wanted to ask Rory about her research. He was interested in her theories and speculations about what life would be like now. He’d ask her when she came back.

**4:28 AM**

“Do you want a pillow?” a soft voice asked. 

Jess didn’t open his eyes. “Mmm,” he said. 

“Can you lift your head for a second?” 

“Yeah,” he breathed, and stayed where he was. 

A gentle laugh. “OK. I’ll leave this here if you wake up more and want it. Try not to get a crick in your neck.” 

He shifted, pushing his shoulders deeper into cushions and made another vague sound of affirmation. The soft, barely-there weight of a blanket fell across him, followed by gentle pressure of a hand on his shoulder. 

“Thank you for staying,” murmured the voice, its soft tones barely filtering through his consciousness. 


End file.
